February 6, 2009:
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has joined a long list of groups that have turned foreign aid into a source of income. The UN has confirmed that Hamas has been seizing food, medical and other aid being sent into Gaza, and selling part of it to raise money. The rest is distributed to their supporters.
This is a problem that has been getting worse over the last decade. International aid groups are having increasing difficulty delivering food to the starving. The major new obstacle is banditry, and the gangs of gunmen who are stealing the food as it is being trucked from a port to the inland areas where it is needed. A year ago, a big reason for the increased theft was the rapid increase in the price of grain. In 2007, rice went for $200-300 a ton. Last year it was about a thousand dollars a ton. That made it much more lucrative to attack grain convoys, despite the armed guards that often accompany them. With a big enough payday, the bandits can muster a large enough force to overwhelm the convoy guards. The price of food has now come down somewhat, but food, and any other kind of foreign aid, is increasingly seen as fair game, even for rebels who claim to be supporting the hungry population.
Somalia, Darfur and Afghanistan are the places where the grain bandits are most active. The stolen food is sold to local grain merchants, who then sell the food for whatever the market will bear. This is what Hamas is doing with both food, and medical, supplies.
The aid groups are responding by trying to get local leaders to accompany the convoys, when travelling through areas known to be preyed on by bandits from the same tribe or group. More security guards are another solution, but this also drives up the cost of delivering the food. Currently, transport and security is increasing cost of food aid by up to 50 percent in some areas. Many donors are no longer willing to donate money or grain for places where lots of banditry, and other bad behavior, take place. In Gaza, Hamas is the government, and forbids anyone else from openly carrying guns. That certainly makes the stealing easier, and makes it nearly impossible to protect the aid supplies.
